Nintendo games can be pricey, but Switch fans can still find fantastic deals. Throughout the year, there are numerous sales on games, Switch consoles, and accessories that are worth exploring. We’ve gathered the top deals currently available below, including a fantastic limited time deal on a Lexar 1TB PLAY microSDXC memory card for $66.49, some Switch games with great discounts at Woot (like Super Mario RPG for just $31.99), and more.
Check out our favorite deals at the moment below, and for more updates on the latest discounts, follow @IGNDeals on Twitter or Threads.
Preorder the Nintendo Switch Lite Hyrule Edition Console
Announced alongside The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom during June’s Nintendo Direct, the Nintendo Switch Lite: Hyrule Edition handheld console is officially up for preorder. Best Buy is offering preorders for $209.99 with orders shipping out on September 26. That’s $10 more than a stock Switch Lite, but that’s more than justified by the fact that this edition includes a 12 month Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership.
More Nintendo Switch Game Deals
There are quite a few Nintendo Switch games on sale right now that are worth picking up for your collection. Currently, some of our favorites are at Woot. They’re holding a sale with a variety of games on offer, including some excellent Switch titles like Super Mario RPG for $31.99 (with code MARIO), Super Mario Odyssey for $39.99, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for $39.99. You can see those deals and more at the links above and below.
The best Switch SD card should be fast, reliable, and as future-proof as possible. That last one is important, especially with the Switch successor on the horizon. Therefore, you’re going to want to opt for the latest in SD card tech, which is a micro SDXC UHS-I U3 A2 V30 memory card. That’s a lot of random letters, so to save you a bit of time we’ve left our top suggestions and deals just above and below for your convenience (like this excellent deal on a Lexar 1TB PLAY microSDXC Memory Card for $66.49). To see even more SD card deals, make sure to check out our roundup of the best SD card deals.
More Switch Micro SD Card Deals
Best Switch Power Bank Deals
Looking for a new power bank? This incredible deal on the Poweradd Pro is absolutely worth checking out. Featuring a spacious 27,000mAh capacity and a hefty 140W charging output, it’s a fantastic pick for your Nintendo Switch. By clipping the 30% off coupon on Amazon’s store page, you can drop its price down to $55.99. Considering the cost of some Anker products with the same specs, this is a price worth taking advantage of while it’s available.
Best Nintendo Switch Accessory Deals
Whether you’re looking for a new controller or a carrying case for your Switch, there are quite a few different accessory deals that are worth checking out. Here, we’ve listed just a few of our favorite discounts at the moment, including a limited time deal on an Orzly carrying case and a deal on a Legend of Zelda PowerA controller.
The short answer is that you should buy a Nintendo Switch whenever there’s any kind of sale, regardless of the time of year. Amazon will likely offer the same console bundles on any other sale as it will on Black Friday or Amazon Prime Day, so there’s no real reason to wait if you’re in need of a Nintendo Switch.
That being said, there are sometimes some unique bundles and promotions during Black Friday that you won’t find any other time of the year. They usually includes additional games (like the infamous Mario Kart 8 bundle) or Switch accessories for free, but quantities tend to be limited. As always, do your research into the seller before you make a purchase and keep in mind that the Nintendo Switch 2 is coming out next year.
With how expensive gaming is getting in 2024, we’re trying to save you as much money as possible on the games and other tech you actually want to buy. We’ve got great deal roundups available for all major platforms such as PlayStation and Xbox, and keep these updated daily with brand-new offers. If you’re trying to keep costs down while maintaining your favorite hobby, stay tuned for more incredible discounts.
Super Mario is one of the biggest gaming properties ever created, with hundreds of games since the Nintendo Entertainment System. 20 different Mario games have released for Nintendo Switch, with more on the way later this year. As part of Walmart’s Labor Day sale, you can save on some of the biggest Mario titles available on Nintendo Switch.
While Labor Day isn’t considered one of the best times to buy video games, there are still some great deals here that are worth looking at. If you’ve yet to complete your Mario collection on Switch, don’t miss out on these deals, which are set to end today.
Save on Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario RPG, and More This Labor Day
First, you can save $20 off Super Mario RPG, the Nintendo Switch remake of the SNES title. The beloved game returns with a fresh coat of paint and the combat we all love, with even Yoko Shimomura returning to compose a remade soundtrack! Super Mario RPG is incredibly beginner-friendly, so you don’t need to have any RPG experience to dive right in and enjoy this classic.
Another great title on sale is Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which is 20% off this weekend. Wonder introduced loads of wonderful new ideas to 2D Mario, including three new power ups, the Wonder Flower, and much more. While this game released just last year, this is the first new 2D Mario that Switch received, as previously only New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe was available.
Additionally, you can save on Mario Party Superstars, the latest Mario Party title. Released in 2021, this game acted as a return to form for the Mario Party series, with multiple boards returning from previous entries. If you’re looking to refresh yourself before Super Mario Party Jamboree, now is a great time to pick up Mario Party Superstars.
Below, you can take a look at more Mario Nintendo Switch deals available at Walmart for Labor Day. Even new titles like Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD are available on sale for a limited time!
Rocksteady management has allegedly acknowledgedthat product quality will take a hit as a result of the lay offs, as remaining QA testers struggle to uphold the same standard as the team once double in size.
The 18 staff members affected reportedly included junior employees and veteran team members who were at the studio more than five years. IGN has asked Warner Bros. Discovery for comment.
In July of 2023, Baldur’s Gate 3 was hardly a blip on my radar. When it was released one month later, it became one of my favorite games of all time.
Now, the game is celebrating its one-year anniversary. Its seventh major patch, which will add official modding support and new endings to the game, is right around the corner, and developer Larian Studios launched a brand new YouTube channel to provide behind-the-scenes looks at the game and its developers. Between its critical acclaim, numerous awards, and financial success, Baldur’s Gate 3 is worth celebrating, but its meteoric rise to success was just as surprising to the developers at Larian as it was to the rest of the gaming community.
“At every single point, I thought it was going to stop,” game director Swen Vincke says of the game’s success. “I remember arguing with our director of publishing, who said, ‘This is going to sell a lot.’ I said, ‘That’s impossible. The number you’re saying is just not possible.'”
The interview with Vincke is done virtually, but while I’m home in my office, Vincke answers my call from the passenger seat of a moving car. He’s the only one who can hear me, but he informs me of potential background noise from the backseat of the car, which is currently filled with several other developers who worked on the game. I don’t know exactly where they’re headed, but to schedule an interview for the travel time from one place to another makes one thing abundantly clear – Vincke is a busy man, but he’s not ready to share the project taking up all of his time.
“That’s impossible. The number you’re saying is just not possible.”
Despite months of patches and media attention on Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian is already hard at work on its next project, and while we don’t know exactly what it is, we know it isn’t Baldur’s Gate 4. In March, Vincke announced the studio’s plans to end its partnership with Wizards of the Coast, meaning Larian won’t be making DLC or a sequel to their critical success. Several months after this announcement, Vincke says the folks at Larian have no regrets about the decision.
“We actually decided this only at Christmas. We were working on stuff, but […] our hearts weren’t as much in it, probably because we spent so much time already in it. So it was time for us to do new things, and ever since, we’ve felt better. We [got] our developer joy back […] and that’s the prime thing, right? If you don’t have that, you can’t make anything good.”
A Series Revivified
It’s only natural that after spending six years working on the game, Larian isn’t as enthusiastic about Baldur’s Gate 3 as it once was. But back in 2017, that exact enthusiasm was what led Vincke to pursue the project to begin with. The original Baldur’s Gate games are hailed as BioWare classics from the late 90s, and after decades without a new entry, Larian saw itself as a developer fit to continue the legacy. Wizards of the Coast (which owns the Baldur’s Gate IP) agreed to a pitch meeting, but the presentation’s date was, ironically, set for the same day as the release date for Larian’s then-upcoming title, Divinity: Original Sin 2. According to Vincke, the time crunch led to a subpar presentation.
“I’m still ashamed for it,” Vincke laughs when recalling the initial pitch meeting. Whatever it was Vincke showed Wizards of the Coast, it was clearly below their standards.
“That was the best that we could do. [Wizards of the Coast] said, ‘This is not very good.’ We said, ‘We know. Give us more time.’ And then they gave us more time.” Thankfully, the following presentation went much better, and the studio was given the green light. So, after shipping the definitive edition of Divinity: Original Sin 2, Larian focused all its efforts on making Baldur’s Gate 3.
The game entered early access in 2020. Just like with D:OS 2, the early access model allowed Larian to refine the gameplay experience with player feedback, but Vincke is unsure whether Larian will follow the same procedure for future games. “I think it has a tremendous amount of benefits,” he says, “but every game has its own structure – its own language – so I think you need to judge that game by game.”
“That was the best that we could do. [Wizards of the Coast] said, ‘This is not very good.'”
In this case, players had plenty of feedback for Baldur’s Gate 3 and Larian had to “course correct on quite a few things.” In addition to a generally buggy launch (a complaint that would be levied at the game even months after its 1.0 release), fundamental pieces of the story and mechanics were completely reworked. Vincke recalls complaints about the past tense framing of the game’s opening sequence, struggles with implementing the Dungeons & Dragons ruleset, and general comments that it was too similar to their previous game. But the early access model ended up working quite well Vincke says. “At some point, we started figuring out how people wanted to play [Baldur’s Gate 3].” For the following three years, Larian would constantly update and expand the content in their early access release, in addition to developing the latter two acts of the game.
These updates often included adjustments to dialogue and story, which meant actors and voice-over artists frequently returned to the recording studio. Vincke and the rest of the writing team “changed the script continuously,” fine-tuning the plot, making everything flow more naturally, and adding more instances where the game could react to player behavior. Vincke’s audience of developers in the backseat of the car laughs as he tells this story. He adds, “Some of the victims of the rewrites are sitting here. The perpetrators, too.”
Roles With Advantages
Of course, no one is more impacted by script rewrites than the actors themselves, but when I spoke to Devora Wilde, the actress who portrays Lae’zel, she remembers being glad for the extra work. “I felt very lucky in the beginning to, as an actor, have a job for such a long period of time,” she says. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m gonna have a job for two years.'” Due to delays in development, those two years would stretch to four, meaning Wilde spent a considerable amount of time in Lae’zel’s virtual shoes – and a considerable amount of time with a recurring gig.
Baldur’s Gate 3 finally launched on August 3, 2023, but Wilde didn’t feel the full impact the game would have for a few weeks. Between her TikTok posts and a video of the cast reading thirsty tweets, there was a considerable amount of online traction, but she didn’t comprehend the physical size of the fanbase until MCM London Comic Con. Jennifer English, who plays Shadowheart in the game, felt the same way.
“I’d gone to London Comic Con when the game was in early access and I remember being really honored that I had 10 people in my queue,” English says. “I think I’d made my rent that weekend. And I was like, ‘Wow, that’s amazing.'” When she came back the following year, her lines had grown to six-hour wait times and the cast needed a security detail to handle the number of people stopping them on the show floor.
Part of this boom in popularity has to do with the actors themselves and their willingness to promote themselves and the game on social media. Popular games are released all the time, but it’s not common for the actors behind video game characters to be thrust into the spotlight. While it wasn’t Larian’s suggestion that the cast begin engaging with memes on social media, Wilde says that Larian’s encouragement of the situation has a lot to do with their ultimate success.
“Larian [was] just gracious enough and fun-loving enough to be like, ‘You know what? We’re just gonna let them run with it.'” Wilde says. “Many other companies don’t allow actors to do that actually, and I think that [Larian] really embrace[s] the spirit of ‘let the actors just kind of get on with it.'”
“I’d gone to London Comic Con when the game was in early access and I remember being really honored that I had 10 people in my queue.”
In addition to the influx of followers, English says the online community’s response to Shadowheart has made her more fond of the role. Despite initially not liking the character, she says, “The stuff that [players] like in Shadowheart is kind of the stuff I like about myself,” and that fans have latched on to parts of the character that she hadn’t even consciously portrayed. Meanwhile, Wilde was surprised Lae’zel was “so polarizing” at first, with many fans being turned away by her stand-offish attitude, though that attitude eventually softened. She says, “I was getting a lot of delayed responses, even now, where people are like, ‘Oh, you know what? On my third playthrough, I gave her a chance and now I love her.”
Scheduling dilemmas mean my interviews with Wilde and English happen at different times, but I chose to speak with the two of them specifically because of their relationships with each other and the online community. Alongside Aliona Baranova, one of Baldur’s Gate 3’s motion capture directors and English’s girlfriend, the actors have cultivated a following that has become separate from the game altogether. This includes a line of merch, with t-shirts referencing Wilde’s love of ranch dressing and inside jokes suggesting the three of them are “God’s Favorite Throuple.”
The latter shirt references a meme of Shadowheart calling herself “God’s favorite princess,” which English recreated per her girlfriend’s suggestion. In fact, English credits her “chronically online girlfriend” Baranova for her social media successes, as English says it’s “never been something I’ve really partaken in.” Right on queue, Baranova peeks her head into the frame – she had been providing commentary from the other side of the Zoom camera the whole time – to say, “I just wanted to add that your Instagram was private. Do you remember?”
Between her personal life, her professional life, and her self-image, Baldur’s Gate 3 has had a profound impact on English. After Baranova leaves to grab dinner, English reflects on the anniversary and says, “It does not feel like a year. And yet, life has completely changed.”
The Next Campaign
English isn’t alone in that feeling; Baldur’s Gate 3 has had a tremendous effect on everyone at Larian. In the months following its release, it won Game of the Year at the Game Awards, the Golden Joystick Awards, the D.I.C.E. Awards, the GDC Awards, and the BAFTAs, not to mention a slew of other awards for narrative and performance, including the second ever Hugo award bestowed upon a video game. It has a staggering 96 on Metacritic and has been hailed as one of the greatest role-playing games of all time. In the face of this monumental impact, Larian’s goals as a studio remain remarkably humble.
“All this success means there are high expectations of what’s next,” art director Joachim Vleminckx writes over email. “We are playing it cool as always and we are not letting the success blind us to the amount of hard work it took to get here.”
“So it was time for us to do new things, and ever since, we’ve felt better.”
“In practice, not much has changed,” Vleminckx’s fellow art director Alena Dubrovina says in that same email. “We are still hard working bees, ready for new adventures. The quality bar was set high by BG3, so we are wrapping our heads around how to raise it even higher.”
The idea of raising a bar past Baldur’s Gate 3 sounds absurd, but Vincke has nitpicks with the game, even now – he wishes the encounter at the entrance to the grove in act one wasn’t so much of a bottleneck, for example. “We could have continued for years tweaking it,” he says. While their future game is sure to present plenty of unseen challenges, the nitpicks and unforeseen hurdles in the past projects will allow Larian to evolve for future ones.
“BG3 was a game that was at a scale that was new to us, […] so we learned a lot about dealing with scale,” he says. “We learned a lot from what we didn’t have, and we’re trying to have that now so we [do] not make the same mistakes.”
“We’re in the luxurious position now that we can pick our own destiny and our own path, which is really cool,” Vincke says later in our conversation. “So I hope that we can sustain that. [I have] two main goals for the studio: being able to make things that we like to make and making sure that it’s sustainable so we can continue doing so.”
This philosophy is directly opposed to much of what we see in the current gaming landscape. Between acquisitions, layoffs, crunching, and executives chasing infinite, exponential growth, it’s a breath of fresh air to hear about a developer settling for a stable working environment. Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of my favorite games of all time, in large part because of the personal, hardcrafted nature evident in its design. One year after the game’s launch, it’s nice to see that the people responsible for that product are excited about what’s to come and satisfied with the work they’ve done.
Charles Harte (@chuckduck365) is a writer, video editor, and podcaster based in Ohio. He can usually be found playing Dungeons & Dragons or petting his cats.
From the moment its cinematic announcement trailer revealed that it would be played from a first-person perspective, Avowed has been viewed as Obsidian Entertainment’s answer to Skyrim. It’s a position Obsidian itself has tried to distance itself from, largely because Avowed is a smaller scale RPG made up of interconnected zones rather than a huge, sprawling open world game. Despite this, the Skyrim comparison makes a certain amount of sense; after proving it could do Bethesda games better than Bethesda itself with Fallout: New Vegas, Obsidian created its own Fallout analogue in 2019’s The Outer Worlds. It cut short the agonising wait for Fallout 5 with a similar style of RPG (sure, it wasn’t open world, but it was directed by Fallout’s original creators), and so eyes have naturally turned to Avowed – could this be the game that finally gives us a new Elder Scrolls-like adventure years before Bethesda ships its own Skyrim successor?
At gamescom 2024 I was able to play an hour of Avowed. That’s hardly enough to say if it truly is capable of standing up to such a landmark RPG as Skyrim – I didn’t even get to explore outside of a single cave. However, what I did play suggested it may well equal (or, hopefully, actually better) Skyrim in one important area: the stealth archer build.
It’s a meme among the Skyrim community that everyone will eventually spec into a stealth archer build, no matter their initial intentions for a playthrough. That’s because playing a shadowy sniper in Skyrim is incredibly satisfying. You can decimate entire dungeons largely unseen and the thud of an arrow hitting an enemy’s skull is delightful every single time, particularly when it triggers a slow-motion killcam. I think Obsidian knows all this and has gone to lengths to ensure its own ranger class is equally strong.
The gamescom demo’s example ranger build was, naturally, equipped with a bow. The fundamentals of it will be familiar to anyone who’s played not just Skyrim but any other game with archery – aim, zoom, draw back longer to increase power, and release. But as any stealth archer knows, the first shot is the most important – if it doesn’t hit true, if it doesn’t kill the target, then stealth is broken and chaos ensues. Seemingly recognising this, Avowed displays a small red diamond-shaped target on an enemy’s weak point when you zoom in, a feature likely pilfered from the similarly killing shot-obsessed Sniper Elite games. While I’m perfectly capable of aiming between the eyes without assistance, I actually don’t mind this – it’s like a HUD representation of your character’s archery prowess. They know exactly where to strike.
After slipping into a parallel shadow realm, you’re able to walk right through enemy patrols without disturbing even the air molecules.
Archery is bolstered by two passive skills – power attacks and Steady Aim. Holding the drawn-back bow string engages the power attack, which empowers the notched arrow with a silver flame-like energy (I’m guessing this is because you play as a Godlike, a supernatural race from the Pillars of Eternity RPGs with which Avowed shares a setting with). Steady Aim, meanwhile, slows down time while aiming that power attack. These are, of course, repackaged versions of archery skills we’ve seen in Skyrim and beyond, but I’m glad they’re here because they’re a vital ingredient in the stealth archer’s return.
Where Avowed’s sample archer build begins to deviate from Skyrim’s template is when it comes to sneaking. Naturally, you can crouch to reduce your visibility and crawl into long grass to disappear completely. But Avowed rangers also have access to the Shadowing Beyond skill, an active ability that renders you fully invisible until you make a combat action (provided you can afford its mana-draining cost.) It’s as effective as it sounds; after literally tearing a hole in reality and slipping into some kind of parallel shadow realm, you’re able to walk right through enemy patrols without disturbing even the air molecules. It’s the stealth archer’s dream, enabling you to bypass tricky encounters or reposition to a more advantageous sniper’s perch. It’s an ability that’s hard to come by in Skyrim; in Tamriel, a stealth archer needs to either find the Bow of Shadows and make use of its invisibility perk (which is nowhere near as powerful or flexible as Shadowing Beyond), or train as an illusionary mage in order to cast the invisibility spell.
Maintaining silent stealth isn’t just for ranged encounters, though. I was pleased to see that Avowed has a proper stealth takedown attack; tap the attack trigger while looking at an unaware enemy and your character lunges forward, a spectral dagger-like weapon forming around their fist. The blade reduces the enemy’s body to shimmering ash, leaving no evidence of your kill for enemy guards to stumble across. It’s a very satisfying animation and an ability I’m sure will shape the direction of a stealth archer’s overall approach.
Of course, not every encounter is going to remain silent. For the occasions where things heat up, the ranger’s Tanglefoot spell allows you to summon thorny vines that root enemies to the spot for several seconds. It keeps them at a distance, letting you snipe them before they get into slashing range. I found this skill was also helpful when combined with other ranged options; the demo character’s backup weapon was a pair of flintlock pistols which are naturally louder and more explosive than a bow (plus can be fired twice in succession thanks to being dual-wielded), but they demand that enemies are kept far away thanks to their long reload times. Smart use of Tanglefoot, as well as directing my AI companion, Kai, to use his own abilities really helped here.
Talking of Kai, I was pleased to see that Avowed’s companions don’t seem to get in the way of your stealth tactics – something many of Skyrim’s clumsy companions are unforgivably guilty of. Kai never busted my cover and I think he even disappeared from view along with me when I used Shadowing Beyond. It’s things like this that make Avowed feel like a Skyrim-style game from the 2020s – the movement, the ability to mantle up to vantage points, the environmental hazards, the impact of combat, and the general polish all make Avowed feel like the kind of Elder Scrolls experience I want to have in the modern age.
I understand why Obsidian tries to push the conversation away from Skyrim when talking about Avowed – its zone-based environments likely will make the game structurally very different from The Elder Scrolls series. But there’s much more to Skyrim than its open world, and it’s those other elements that I think Obsidian can offer an excellent, updated analogue to. Hopefully, when we have the chance to explore beyond the demo’s cave and experience the grander scope of Avowed’s setting and story, it’ll also prove itself a well-designed, modern-feeling RPG in the important areas: character, level, and quest design. But for now I’m left feeling reasonably confident that Avowed will, at the very least, tickle the same bits of my brain that Skyrim did when I let loose a well-aimed arrow into a lizard man’s face.
Voice acting legend Jennifer Hale, who’s appeared in the likes of Metal Gear Solid, Baldur’s Gate, Mass Effect, and more, has commented on the ongoing video game strikes and the threat of artificial intelligence.
“The truth is, AI is just a tool like a hammer,” she said. “If I take my hammer, I could build you a house. I can also take that same hammer and I can smash your skin and destroy who you are.”
Hale continued: “If you use something that originated in our body or our voices, can we please get paid?” Because now you’re using technology to take away our ability to feed our kids.
“What I wish everyone would do was keep asking the actual question, which is: ‘There’s a lot of money being made here. Where is it going?’ And in the current setup, the way our system operates, and this whole idea of shareholder supremacy, it’s flowing to the 1%. If you flow so much money, you can’t even feed the people who made it possible.”
The disparity between Hale’s alleged payment and the success of Metal Gear Solid is “indicative of what’s happening in modern culture”, she said, adding she hopes the standard for these payments changes.
Many voice actors have expressed how AI adds to this disparity, as companies can now generate voices and other work without having to pay anyone but the companies behind the AI itself, despite them pulling from real people like Hale.
Nintendo has suggested The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom aren’t part of any previously confirmed Zelda timeline but instead the start of something new.
A presentation at Nintendo Live 2024 in Sydney, Australia, shared by @Wario64 on X/Twitter, outlined The Legend of Zelda history and its myriad timelines, but the two latest games were placed separately to the three previously confirmed narratives.
Zelda canon is, dare we say, a touch messy, as while Nintendo insists the games all connect to each other, they only doing so via three alternative realities. It all begins with the events of Skyward Sword, followed by Minish Cap, Four Swords, and eventually Ocarina of Time.
But it’s here the timeline splits in three. One path sees protagonist Link succeed in saving the kingdom of Hyrule and remain an adult, choosing not to return to his life as a child through the game’s time travelling shenanigans. Things later go south, however, and Hyrule is flooded, spawning The Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks.
The timeline where Link succeeds and returns to being a child is immediately followed up by Majora’s Mask, then later Twilight Princess and Four Sword Adventures.
The dark timeline, however, where Link is defeated altogether, spawns A Link to the Past, Link’s Awakening, Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages, A Link Between Worlds, Triforce Heroes, and finally and ironically the final two games of The Legend of Zelda and Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link.
Fans have therefore theorized where exactly Breath of the Wild falls since its release in 2017. The game introduces a quite different Hyrule that doesn’t fit neatly under any of the timelines, but because that’s not stopped Nintendo before, fans have persisted in trying to figure it out.
Tears of the Kingdom arrived in 2023 as a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild, meaning a connection between the two was obvious, but still it didn’t help definitively place the pair on any of the three Zelda timelines.
Nintendo has now suggested they’re part of a completely new timeline, however, and perhaps one that isn’t fully established yet. While there’s a canonical link between every other game, these two sit on Zelda’s timeline completely separate, not connected to anything else or even each other.
The pair are likely part of a brand new Zelda timeline as a result, but where or why or how it connects to the rest of the games remains to be seen. Nintendo could be embracing the multiverse approach of recent years to justify their existence, or it’s perhaps waiting to connect them elsewhere later.
What’s the greatest NES game of all time? Super Mario Bros 3? Perhaps it’s Mega-Man 2, or The Legend of Zelda? There’s almost certainly no definitive answer to the single best game on the console, but what If I told you one of its greatest games was one that not only shattered the perception of what you could achieve on the NES, but was also a game you’ve (probably) never heard of?
Gimmick!, developed by Japanese studio Sunsoft, was a Nintendo Entertainment System masterpiece. But despite critical acclaim – including praise from industry legends Shigeru Miyamoto and Masahiro Sakurai – it was almost immediately forgotten, in no small part thanks to the fact it was only ever released in Japan and one small Scandinavian pocket of the West. Despite its obscurity, though, one Swedish fan not only loved Gimmick!, he obsessed over it. This was more than a mere hobby, too, as he set up his own studio with the lifelong goal of creating the sequel Gimmick! deserved and finally exposing it to the world.
But the journey wasn’t easy. From being laughed out of a pitch meeting to mass layoffs threatening the studio’s existence, the path to Gimmick! 2 has been as tricky as its notoriously difficult predecessor.
This is the Inside Story of Gimmick!, the greatest forgotten NES game and its unexpected 2024 sequel.
Despite its relative obscurity, Gimmick! is appreciated. It’s regularly mentioned in top lists by hardcore NES enthusiasts and original copies trade on eBay for ungodly amounts of money. Iconic Nintendo game director Shigeru Miyamoto said it was “fun”, extremely high praise from someone who rarely (if at all) praises other people’s games. Kirby and Super Smash Bros visionary Masahiro Sakurai has been even more enthusiastic, saying Gimmick! was “a technical marvel”.
But what is it about Gimmick! that’s so revered? Why do hardcore fans and industry legends worship a game about a green, star-throwing blob called Yumetaro?
“It just did a lot of things to stand out,” says Illusory Wall, a Dark Souls YouTuber and huge fan of Gimmick! “It was offering an experience that was unique.” That uniqueness was exemplified by Gimmick!’s star mechanic, a charged projectile that also could serve as a platform to jump off – a rare feature by even today’s standards, but in 1992 it was revolutionary.
“I can’t think of another platformer on the NES that has anything close to the mechanics of this game,” says Pat the NES Punk, retro Nintendo enthusiast, YouTuber and Gimmick! obsessive. “What’s amazing about the star attack is that it’s based seemingly on realistic physics. It deflects off objects and enemies, it bounces and dissipates.”
I firmly believe that Gimmick! would always be on anyone’s top 5 NES game had it been released beyond Japan and Scandinavia.
Gimmick! was more than its star mechanic, though. Not only was it a tight, colourful, and fun platformer equal to many of its peers, but Gimmick! also set new standards for variety and detail. In an era where Super Mario games constantly reused sprites and tile sets, Gimmick! was full of environmental diversity. Each level was unique and also loaded with bespoke one-off moments; moments that often weren’t required, but just added an unprecedented level of depth to each space.
“There’s these two sprites at the beginning of level six that don’t exist anywhere else in the game and it’s basically a guy playing with his dog,” explains Illusory Wall. “The dog gets excited for you holding onto the star, it treats it like you’re holding onto a ball – It’ll wag its tail and come after you. The guy is tepid, he doesn’t want to be in your business. The fact that they’re not even trying to attack you adds an extra layer. They feel like these living creatures in the game, they’re not just obstacles.”
“In the second stage, you can knock over the spiny turtle enemy. If you then jump on the legs of the character it’ll kick you in the opposite direction, it’s realistically pushing you off the enemy,” explains Pat the NES Punk. ”There’s no gameplay reason for that to exist in the game. It’s just a cute little touch that other games [of the era] wouldn’t have.”
Gimmick! is jam-packed with these moments. Its second level even features a Metal Gear Solid-like moment where the end-level boss can be found asleep if you reach him too quickly. Each level is full of detail reserved for only the most ambitious games of today. “I firmly believe that Gimmick! would always be on [anyone’s] top 5 NES game had it been released [beyond Japan and Scandinavia]” claims Pat the NES Punk.
Gimmick! fans know it’s special, but despite being a critical hit, the game never reached an audience large enough to gain commercial success. Gimmick! (or Mr. Gimmick! in Sweden) was never released outside of Japan and Sweden. And even in the two countries where it did make it to shelves, its availability was limited. So much so that many of the Swedish developers working on the sequel hadn’t heard of it before they joined the project.
“I first heard of Gimmick! through a Swedish retro gaming YouTube channel,” says Olof Karlsson, Lead Programmer on Gimmick! 2. ”I grew up playing Nintendo games, and I never played Gimmick! It’s like Kirby’s Adventure in the quality level, except that no one really knows about it. How?”
So why was Gimmick!, despite its apparent quality, never widely released in the West? Perhaps it arrived too late into the NES’s lifecycle, or was an unfortunate victim of cost-saving measures. According to Sunsoft’s former vice president of development in America, David Siller, the company’s managers felt the game’s characters were too “strange or quirky”. For a game aimed at children, this – paired with the elevated difficulty level – perhaps didn’t present well for its target audience. That’s right, Gimmick! Is hard. REALLY hard.
Despite its cute looks Gimmick! is more of a Castlevania than a Kirby.
“It’s a game that looks cute and colourful – probably most analogous to Kirby on the NES. But Kirby was more reasonable to get through,” explains Illusory Wall. “Despite its cute looks [Gimmick! is] more of a Castlevania than a Kirby.”
“The difficulty of Mr. Gimmick was one of its advertising features,” recalls Pat the NES Punk. In fact, an ominous warning was even on the back of the original box: “Every game you played before has only prepared you for this ultimate challenge. You’ll call on many skills, techniques and tricks you’ve learned to help Mr. Gimmick survive the evil onslaught. Only the strong will survive and only the very best will experience the secret ending.”
Despite the positive critical reception Gimmick has received over time, its inevitable lack of commercial success never presented an opportunity for a sequel. Gimmick!, like many forgotten gems of its era, faded into obscurity, with Sunsoft leaving Yumetaro to gather decades worth of dust. 30 years later, though, one hardcore Swedish fan had different ideas…
“I didn’t own Gimmick!, I [only] played it at a friend’s house, but I truly remember the characters in the game. They were so much alive compared to [other] games,” says Niklas Istenes, the CEO and founder of Bitwave Games and creator of Gimmick! 2. “[Later on] when I started to collect games I finally bought the cart and I remembered I loved it. I watched speedruns, I watched people highlighting the secrets, I was so intrigued by how many details there are in this game. It was my go-to title when people came over and saw my retro collection. I always brought out my Gimmick! [cartridge] first.”
It’s clear that Istenes is a super fan of Gimmick!, and that was reinforced when IGN visited the Gimmick!-filled Bitwave office in February of 2023. But the dots still needed connecting. How had this small, Swedish developer –- who at the time had only released one game called Pictoparty on the Wii U – been allowed to create the sequel to a forgotten, Japanese, Nintendo cult classic?
“I had no idea if Sunsoft was still around, maybe they’re bankrupt or something?” shares Istenes. “Maybe they don’t care anymore about their old IPs? So I wrote… not even a pitch, it was more of like, ’Hey, do you still have this IP? We’re interested in doing a sequel. What’s the royalty cost, yada, yada, yada.’”
“My proposition was around $10,000. They’re like, ‘No, that’s small fry for us. You’re a nobody. You made a party game on Wii U. No way you’re getting one of our most cherished IPs.’ I don’t know what I expected. It was a shot in the dark.”
The vision of my company was to do the sequel Gimmick!, so that’s what I pitched.
Istenes’ attempt was bold and certainly naive. He explained that Bitwave Games (previously known as Retroid Interactive) was built on a foundation of his love for Gimmick!. He would often wax lyrical about the forgotten platformer to his colleagues, and now it appeared his dream of making a sequel was now dead. But a few years later, right in the eye of the Covid pandemic storm – an event that threatened the studio’s very survival – there was a glimmer of hope…
“It was a very low period, and there was a lot of talk of whether we should just close down” recalls Istenes. “I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. So I reached out to a friend called Martin Lindell. Martin came back and he was like, ‘I started at Embracer. Could you pitch your company to us?’ The vision of my company was to do the sequel Gimmick!, so that’s what I pitched.”
Embracer Group is a large Swedish game licensing company that, at one time, was making an unfathomable number of acquisitions, Bitwave being one of them. Embracer not only liked what Bitwave had to offer, but was on board with trying to get the rights to a Gimmick! sequel. It immediately got to work putting Istenes in front of Sunsoft to pitch the concept after an undisclosed, but no doubt significantly improved offer.
“I couldn’t see how they reacted because it was a very small window in Microsoft Teams, and they were all wearing face masks,” recalls Istenes, describing his awkward videocall pitch to Sunsoft. “The translator also had an issue with her camera, so she had to turn it off. Then her default image was a cat, so it was like a cat was translating it. It was just weird. They could feel my passion for the game, though, and I think that’s what truly nailed it in the end.”
Finally, a lifelong dream could be realised. Bitwave Games could now create a sequel to the long-forgotten masterpiece. There was just one problem… they now had to make a game that not only honoured the original, but one that surpassed it…
“We wanted it to stand on its own. We want it to be a fun platforming game that appeals to everyone,” explains Lead Programmer Olof Karlsson. “ We want it to be accessible, but also a true sequel. We don’t want [fans of the original] to feel like we’ve massacred their boy. It should be like, ‘Wow, they really took this to a new direction but it’s still Gimmick!.’”
The passion for Gimmick! 2 at the Bitwave office during our visit was undeniable, but it was all built on the foundation of their love of the original. Istenes is proud of the space, particularly his treasured retro collection. And of course, the items that took pride of place were his valuable original editions of Gimmick!.
“I bought the PAL version first. It was $250,” recalls Istenes. “The guy who sold it had no idea what he had on his hands. He was cleaning his mother’s basement, found a bunch of NES games he played when he was young, and decided to sell them on Tradera [Scandinavia’s eBay equivalent]. He was [very confused about] why this was so special.”
He wasn’t the only person struggling to understand the second-hand value of this long-forgotten cartridge. Gimmick! recently featured on the Swedish TV show, Bytt är bytt, A.K.A Trash or Treasure. It’s a show that tasks contestants to estimate the value of antique objects. Not only had the contestant, despite being a self-proclaimed NES fan, never heard of Gimmick!, but the host also openly declared it “The game that nobody wanted”. But Istenes wanted it. And he didn’t just want the Swedish edition, he wanted the definitive release.
“The Japanese version is the version you need because it has an extra sound chip,” reveals Istenes, pointing out that only the Famicom edition featured the revolutionary YM2149 sound processor, a piece of hardware that doubled the game’s audio channels. And when Istenes finally acquired his very own Japanese version, inside the collector’s item’s case was more than just an enhanced Gimmick! cartridge. The seller had included a secret note…
“Hi, Niklas, my name is Takumi Hamada. Thank you bid. I’m very happy. I want to be friends with people around the world on eBay. Please contact bullshit. I always want to Japanese products. I help you anytime. Arigato.”
“He wanted to be friends with me on eBay,” says Istenes, smiling from ear to ear. “If you’re out there, thank you very much for this amazing product, which does not contain any bullshit at all!”
Gimmick! was more than a game to Istenes. It was nostalgia in its purest form, reminding him of the time he spent enjoying the game with his childhood friend. Decades later, Gimmick! was still helping him forge friendships. “When I joined, it was just Niklas and Gustav and both of them were consultants,” explains Karlsson. “I was the only one working in-house. The reason I joined this company was because I wanted to work with Niklas.”
The Gimmick! 2 team was quickly being assembled, but by the time production of the long overdue sequel was in full swing Istenes obtained perhaps his greatest coup: “I reached out to a composer I used to work with, but he was too busy for the project,” says Istenes, “He told me to shoot for the stars though. Which composer would I want to work on a game like this? I thought it would be cool to work with someone like David Wise.”
It was clear that Istenes had no problem shooting for the stars. After already successfully getting the rights to his dream game, he boldly reached out to the iconic David Wise; the video game composer famous for soundtracks such as Donkey Kong Country and Battletoads. He was Istenes’ dream composer. And, perhaps to his surprise, Wise immediately said ‘yes’.
”I love [classic] Nintendo games and working on the platform,” says Wise. “It was an easy ‘Yep, I want to be involved.’”
The pair immediately got to work on finding Gimmick! 2’s unique musical tone, looking for the sweet spot between the original and the sequel’s two countries of origin. “I’ve made sure I’ve used this wonderful instrument called the Nyckelharpa,” explains Wise, referring to a Swedish instrument whose name translates to ‘key harp’. “It’s like a violin, but it’s got these little wooden switches on them. It’s got its own ethereal sound and I was very keen to get that into the soundtrack.”
“I remember playing Donkey Kong Country and listening to the aquatic theme that he made and doing fan drawings when I was in school,” says Istenes. “It was just so amazing to be working with him.”
Not only had Istenes got the rights to make his dream sequel, but he had also struck a deal with his dream composer. Gimmick! 2’s production was progressing well. So well, in fact, that it was only a matter of time until disaster struck…
In June 2023, Embracer Group announced a restructuring program, making significant cuts to the entire workforce across all of its acquired studios. Unfortunately, staff at Bitwave Games were among the many casualties, losing half of their colleagues in one fell swoop. Gimmick! 2 was immediately put in jeopardy.
“When the news hit it was scary,” explains Istenes. “I didn’t know exactly how it would affect the studio. It wasn’t like I had a list of people that I knew would have to leave. But since it’s a monetary situation, it needed to happen fast.”
“It was one of the darkest days in the history of our company,” says Senior Game Developer, Hampus Lidin. “I don’t think we’d had such a huge setback before.” It was a setback that caused Lead Programmer Olof Karlsson to feel a little lost: “I was very confused about how to handle this. How do I feel? What am I supposed to feel?”
It was one of the darkest days in the history of our company.
“People who had to leave were a part of the company for five years, and there are some staff members that’d been a part of the project from the beginning,” shares Istenes. “You kind of just have to shut off your human part of the situation.”
Understandably, this was a tough pill to swallow for the affected staff. But Istenes was also deeply troubled by the situation, as he’d always thought of Embracer as the studio’s saviour. In a single moment, everything was turned upside down. “I’m not blaming Embracer for what happened,” says Istenes. “It’s external forces and how the industry is. My relationship with Embracer is still very good. They’re just pivoting as well to just try to make the best out of a situation. Some hard calls needed to be made.”
Six months had passed since we first visited the studio in February of 2023, and since then the Embracer cuts hadn’t been the only bad news for the production of Gimmick! 2. During that time, Lead Programmer Olaf Karlsson had stepped away from the project due to burnout, only to later return out of necessity after the layoffs.
“The fact that I only lasted six months before burning out was heartbreaking,” explains Karlsson. “I came back as a result of the layoffs. Niklas approached me and said, ‘I know that you burnt out on this previous project and that you didn’t want to hear about it anymore, but could you consider coming back?’ And I was like, ’Yes, of course.’”
Gimmick! 2 had stalled, and there was a genuine fear that this labour of love might never make it to the finish line. But there was still an underlying determination from its leader to see it through, and that passion emanated through the entire studio. “I don’t really want to work on something unless I feel like everyone around me really wants to do it,” says Karlsson. “To have the CEO want to do it this much [gives you] a level of engagement that you otherwise wouldn’t really get.”
It doesn’t just feel like something wearing the old game’s skin. It feels like a true sequel to Gimmick!
Surprisingly, despite the hurdles, Gimmick! 2 got back on track fast, with Istenes – in a desperate attempt to save his dream – introducing a pivot into production.
“I want it to be the best game ever,” says Istenes. ”I want every idea that I have to be in the game, which makes it very, very hard to design a game like that. When the news broke, I knew we could still [finish] the game, but we needed to pivot back to the roots and focus more on gameplay. It was pretty clear from the beginning what we needed to cut in the game to still make it great and as long and enjoyable as we wanted it to be.”
The pivot back to a gameplay focus allowed the Bitwave team to refocus on their original vision, cut out the unnecessary bells and whistles, and double down on the core experience that made the original so beloved. “It feels more true. It feels more like a sequel.” explains Karlsson. “It doesn’t just feel like something wearing the old game’s skin. It feels like a true sequel to Gimmick!. We can actually finish this still. This is doable.”
Gimmick! 2 is fast approaching. In fact, there’s a good chance it’s available for you to play right now. Despite the hardships, the whole project has been built with consistent passion. Whether it was a love of the original’s design, technology, hardware, or just plain nostalgia, Bitwave Games has been built on the foundation of Yumetaro, and that love bleeds through every frame of the sequel.
“The opportunity to work on Gimmick! 2 was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” explains Karlsson.”I think what will make it special is a combination of what we’re aiming for; a very tight, mechanically interesting and fun platforming game with amazing visuals and a beautiful soundtrack composed by f**king David Wise of all people. How did we get David Wise? It’s incredible.”
“I hope it captures the same spirit of the original,” says Pat the NES Punk. “ I hope it seems like a world of wonder with interesting enemies and characters you encounter along the way.”
“I hope people will learn more about the original one,” says Istenes. “I think this will be a much better game in more than one sense. But I hope people will play this, enjoy the game, and then go back and play the original game. And, hopefully, we’ll make a sequel to this one as well!”
We didn’t pick this to be the game that would make us the richest studio in Gothenburg.
For better or worse, Gimmick! 2 fulfils a lifelong ambition. Time will tell if the sequel will create its own lasting impact like its predecessor, or perhaps even exceed the original’s legacy. We don’t know if Bitwave Games will thrive or fall under the weight of an ever-evolving industry, and we don’t know if Gimmick! will ever truly receive all the praise it so clearly deserves. What we do know is that Yumetaro started a dream. A dream that built a studio, helped craft a vision decades in the making, and forged an assortment of beautiful friendships.
Not bad for a barely released, forgotten ‘90s game about an anthropomorphic, star-throwing green blob.
“This game has always been a project of the studio’s heart,” says Istenes. “We didn’t pick this to be the game that would make us the richest studio in Gothenburg. It’s to set a trend of how we make high-quality games, that’s what we’re aiming for here. As long as some people enjoy playing the game, and get a fun player experience from it, then I’m happy.”
Thank you to Pat the NES Punk, Illusory Wall, Pekachow, David Wise, Niklas Istenes, and everyone at Bitwave Games for their time. Special thank you to Jesse Gomez for production and Andréas Göransson for sharing the story.
At last. The LEGO Great Deku Tree, available exclusively at the LEGO Store, is the first of its kind – a Nintendo-themed set that doesn’t concern a certain turtle-stomping, mustachioed plumber. Instead, we’re transported to a medieval land ruled by prophecy, fate, and magic. For thousands of years, our heroes, Link and Zelda, have saved Hyrule from the forces of evil.
The Great Deku Tree was a key ally in four of their most acclaimed adventures: Ocarina of Time (1998), The Wind Waker (2003), Breath of the Wild (2017), and Tears of the Kingdom (2023). And accordingly, this set includes Easter eggs from across the franchise. It would appeal to any 3D Zelda fan, regardless of which series entry they grew up exploring.
The LEGO Great Deku Tree gives you two build options. In the first option, you build the Tree as it appeared in Ocarina of Time, where, in its dying moments, it summoned Link and sent him on his quest to defeat Ganon. The first boss battle, against the Queen Gohma, takes place inside the Tree.
In the second option, you build the Tree as it appeared in Breath of the Wild, standing watch over the Master Sword. This iteration of the Great Deku Tree is covered in pink leaves rather than green, and its root structure is more extensive and tangled, although its base is less solid and stout, like a swamp tree that’s evolved to survive in water. Perhaps over thousands of years, the ecosystem of the forest changed, even as the characters that inhabited it recurred.
The two builds are split into 22 bags. You cannot build both trees at the same time; there is extensive overlap, especially in the beginning and middle portions of each build, that prevent this from happening. You get a single, thick instruction book for both builds. There are no stickers in this build; all illustrations are printed directly onto the bricks themselves.
The two Great Deku Trees are not, canonically speaking, the same character; each new iteration of the Deku Tree grows from a seed and sprout of the prior one. They are all descended from one another, and thus, it is fitting that the first halves of both builds are identical. You start by laying down the forest floor and the base of the tree.
You also build two miniature builds separate from the main tree, and no matter which tree iteration you decide to go with, you will not have to ‘recycle’ them; these two miniatures will accompany the final build regardless. The first miniature is Link’s forest house from Ocarina of Time, which contains a box to store his supplies, including a hookshot, a bomb, red and blue potions, and a compass. It also comes with Navi the Fairy, which you can swap to be green, blue, or yellow, depending on whether Link is talking, searching, or fighting enemies.
The second miniature is of the pedestal in Breath of the Wild, where Link finds the Master Sword in Korok Forest. You also build Hestu (complete with his maracas) and Korok creatures that dot the forest floor.
The Great Deku Tree set comes with a total of four minifigures. You get a Breath of the Wild Link and a Breath of the Wild Zelda in their signature teal tunics, and you get two iterations of Ocarina Link – Young Link, whose tunic comes with a skirt piece around its waist, and Adult Link, who you can display with the titular Ocarina.
The minifigures come with numerous weapon accessories. In addition to the supplies in the various trunks and boxes, you have three options for swords – a short sword, the Kokiri sword, and the Master Sword – and three options for shields – the Traveler’s Shield, the Deku Shield, and the Hylian Shield with its signature crest.
After the first nine bags, you’re directed to branch off and choose either the Breath of the Wild build or the Ocarina build. If you decide to go with the former, you proceed right on to Bag 10, and you continue building up through Bag 19, in linear order. The final Breath of the Wild tree contains two remote Bomb Rune and a Sheikah Slate in hidden compartments along the tree’s base. There’s a tribute to the Riddles of Hyrule sidequest in the tree’s head. At the bottom of the tree is the Navel, which includes the General Shoppe, Spore Store, and Inn. The tree itself is rigged so that when you push down on a lever at the back, its eyebrows and mouth move. Lastly, you build four smaller trees that decorate the surrounding area.
If you decide on the Ocarina build, you take a more circuitous route to the end result. After Bag 19, you open Bags 10, 14, and 23 at the same time. Then Bag 13. Then Bag 16. Then Bags 17, 20, and 21. And then lastly, Bag 22.
The Ocarina tree comes with its own set of game-specific Easter eggs. The tree’s hidden compartments contain a fairy bow and a staff notes musical representation of “Saria’s Song.” The bottom of the tree is a dungeon, with a treasure chest that holds a Fairy Slingshot and a massive Skulltula that drops from the ceiling via a catch-and-release mechanism.
Outside, instead of additional trees, there’s a Gossip Stone and two carnivorous Deku Babas to eat Link if he gets too close. Lastly, the tree’s mouth opens into a doorway so that Link can crawl inside and explore.
If there is a drawback to this set, it’s that once you build one version of the set, you will feel hard-pressed to build the other. For the sake of this review, I managed it, but it required me to exercise foresight; I got a bunch of Zip-Loc bags and address labels to keep track of what went where.
So right now, I have the leftover pieces from Bags 10, 14, and 23 in a single bag. If I take apart the current tree, I’ll have to match up my tree with the instruction booklet’s tree to figure out what went there, and then rebag and regroup them. But even that doesn’t completely solve the problem, unless I separate everything into three piles, piece by piece. It’ll be a slow go, and that’s if I don’t lose a couple of pieces in the transition. So I probably won’t. Doing it once was enough.
If I had to choose which was the “better” build, it’s the Breath of the Wild tree. It’s more colorful and detailed, and its facial expressions are more animated. But that said, both trees are an impressive sight. And if you grew up with Ocarina of Time, then that’s the tree you’re building. Your nostalgia will make the final decision for you.
LEGO Great Deku Tree 2-in-1, Set #77092, retails for $299.99, and it is composed of 2500 pieces. It is available exclusively at the LEGO Store. For more, check out our picks for the best Nintendo LEGO sets, as well as the best Marvel LEGO sets.
Kevin Wong is a contributing freelancer for IGN, specializing in LEGO. He’s also been published in Complex, Engadget, Gamespot, Kotaku, and more. Follow him on Twitter at @kevinjameswong.
SSD prices are trending upward for 2024, but there are still some excellent deals to be found if you’re vigilant. Today, MSI is offering its PS5-compatible MSI Spatium M482 2TB PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 Solid State Drive (SSD) for only $99.99 wtih free shipping. This is the best price currently for a 2TB SSD that fulfills all of the mandatory and recommended requirements for the PS5 console. You’ll need to supply a heatsink, but you can easily get a PS5 heatsink for under $10.
MSI Spatium 2TB M.2 SSD (PS5-Compatible) for $99.99
The PS5 is an outstanding gaming console, but the 1TB SSD is a real bottleneck. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, for example, can exceed 200GB alone. NBA 2K23 weighs in at 150GB and even older games like God of War: Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West require 90GB of space. Future games like Grand Theft Auto VI will undoubtedly demand even more space. The advantage of a PS5 console over the Xbox Series X is that the SSD slot is not proprietary; you can install most third-party PCIe Gen4 x4 SSDs as long as they are fast enough. Slower drives will still work, but they may bottleneck the original SSD so they aren’t recommended if you want a seamless experience.
The MSI Spatium M482 meets all the requirements for your PS5 upgrade. This is a PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD with an M.2 2280 form factor and transfer speeds of up to 7,300MB/s read and 6,400MB/s write which is well above the 5,500MB/s minimum threshold. It also makes an excellent boot drive for your gaming PC, especially with its 2TB storage capacity. For 2024, we’ve rarely come across a PS5-compatible 2TB SSD priced under $100, so you should jump on this deal. We may see deals of this caliber during Black Friday, but that’s still a few months away, and there’s no guarantee that SSD prices won’t rise again.
